I had big plans for posting in June -- summer, with its abundance of tomatoes, corn, basil, and berries tends to be a season where I have more recipes and ideas than I know what to do with -- but it's been a busy couple of weeks. There's been a wedding here in Rome and a baby shower up in Milan; a dear friend from my University days, whom I haven't seen in nearly 7 years, is in town, along with a few other visitors from home; there have been cooking classes, and two food-related side projects (!), and more pasta-making, and while it has been a wonderful month, I'm happy to have a minute (or, more specifically: a free lunch hour) to sit down and write a post. Ahhhh. Forgive me for the delay!

There tends to be a cobbler, or a crisp, or a crumble on my blog every summer; it has become an unofficial blog tradition, one born simply out of the fact that they scream summer to me -- lots of peak-of-the-season summer fruit, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! -- and this year is no exception. There was 2015's plum cobbler, 2016's blueberry crumble (pie), 2017's peach cobbler, and 2018's smash hit nectarine blueberry crumble (one of the most viewed recipes on the blog that year!) and now, ladies and gentleman, I give you **drumroll** 2019's Breakfast Apricot + Berry Crisp.

This recipe comes from HRH Deb Perelman, aka Smitten Kitchen, My Favorite Blogger Always and Forever. Leave it to Smitten Kitchen -- the mind behind these genius savory (!) shortcakes, this Thanksgiving-y, vegetarian-friendly main, and this you-can-have-your-dessert-and-drink-it-too red wine chocolate cake , among many others -- to invent a crisp that is best eaten at breakfast rather than for dessert. Like most SK recipes, this is one of those brilliant, why didn't I ever think of that! sort of dishes, the type of impeccable work I've come to expect from my preferred food blogger after all these years.

After all, fruit, oatmeal, and yogurt are all perfectly suitable candidates for the first meal of the day, so why not bake up the first two with a touch of sugar and cinnamon, a little butter, and a handful of walnuts, and then dollop the resulting breakfast-splendor with yogurt making for a mildly virtuous, healthy-ish breakfast, colazione stepped up a notch?!

The strawberries here are at their summer best, sweet and juicy and the perfect foil to tart, slightly no-nonsense apricots, the whole thing tucked under a crunchy, wholesome topping reminiscent of an oatmeal cookie, and really, does it come as any surprise to you then that this is a real treat when eaten cold out of the fridge on what promises to be a boiling day, an instant antidote to any potential case of The Mondays, and ideal if you feel you need a little something more than your average bowl of cereal (or in my case, cornetto)?!

(Summer) Breakfast of champions, indeed.

A couple of notes: Though apricots are on the tart side, this could very well be served with vanilla ice cream and dusted with powdered sugar to make it more dessert-like. Having said this however, this really is meant to be eaten at breakfast with yogurt (at least in my opinion!) I used red apricots (albicocche rosse) which were really pretty.

If you'd like to go more the dessert route, substitute something sweeter like peaches or plums for the apricots. Here I added in strawberries, but feel free to throw in some blueberries, or cherries, or raspberries if you'd like. If you don't have any whole wheat flour, use 1/2 cup all-purpose, and feel free to substitute almonds (as per the original recipe) or even pecans for the walnuts here.

For more breakfast recipes, click here, and for more brunch recipes, click here. .

BREAKFAST APRICOT + BERRY CRISP

Recipe slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen. Serves 6.

Ingredients for fruit:
1 pound (445 grams) apricots
8 strawberries
3 tablespoons (37 grams) sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons (about 11 grams) flour
A dash of cinnamon

Ingredients for topping:
4 tablespoons (56 grams) butter, melted
6 tablespoons (75 grams) sugar
1/2 cup (90 grams) oats
1/4 cup (30 grams) whole wheat flour
1/4 cup (30 grams) all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pull apart apricots at their seam, remove pits, and cut them one at a time into quarters, placing them in a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar, flour and cinnamon and set aside.

Make topping: In a small skillet, melt the butter and stir in sugar, then oats, then flours, salt and walnuts until large clumps form. Pour the fruit mixture in to a small baking dish (one that holds two to three cups is ideal) and sprinkle the crisp mixture over the fruit.

Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes and serve warm, or refrigerate once cool and eat cold the next day mixed with a scoop of yogurt for a weekday breakfast.